So... I just imagined all those people who've been complaining for the past 18 years that Kirk's death wasn't handled well? And that's a canonical death.

No it wasn't. Ron Moore, one of the writers, said so himself. Kirk's role in Generations was nothing more than a glorified cameo. He was only in the movie to have a bridge to the original series and nothing more. The actor himself hated it so much that he wrote an entire series reviving the Kirk character and while I know those don't fit into the novelverse continuity I feel that the books about Kirk's revival undid that.

What you feel has nothing to do with the topic under discussion. The books, by definition, are not part of the canon, therefore yes, Kirk's death was canonical, and his resurrection was not.

And whether or not you liked Kirk's death does not change the fact that it did happen, that someone wrote a story where Kirk died, just as someone wrote a story where Janeway died. And a lot of people do feel that Kirk's death was mishandled -- and evidently you're one of those people! So you're contradicting yourself when you say Janeway was the only captain whose fate was mishandled. It's simply not a statement that holds up to scrutiny.

Even your book Watching The Clock made Janeway's death have more meaning, none of the uptime governments would have existed without her actions.

Uhh, no, not really; you're confusing two different Janeway finales. It was her actions in "Endgame" that were important to the factions in the future, because they triggered the events that led to Destiny and the Caeliar's redemption of the Borg. The events of Before Dishonor were essentially peripheral to that.

I guess I should have said that Captain Janeway hasn't been treated as well as she could have been in the novelverse as the other male captains have. Out of three female captains, Janeway, Kira and Dax, the only one still around now and in a leadership position is Dax. Kirk came back, Sisko came back, Picard never left and neither did Archer. Why is it that only the female leads are treated that way?

They aren't. Come on, if you've really read the literature, you know the current crop of authors is dedicated to introducing new, strong female characters and to treating all characters equally regardless of their sex. You're manufacturing a pattern that doesn't exist, partly by fixating on captains to the exclusion of other characters who are often equally important in the literature.

It's been pointed out many times that the person who decided to kill Janeway in the novels was a woman, editor Margaret Clark, so it's completely ludicrous to claim that there was any sexism behind it. You'd have to ask Margaret what her reasons were, but I'd imagine she may have felt that as an admiral, stuck in a desk job, Janeway wasn't doing anything really interesting anymore, so it might serve her character better to let her go out with a bang saving the Federation one last time. Not a gendered decision, simply a decision based on the rank and status the character canonically ended up in.

As for Kira, yes, she left a leadership position for a different life, but let me remind you, so did Sisko. Right now, the situation is that Sisko is in command but Kira isn't, but five years ago it would've been the other way around, and there's no telling where it'll be five years from now. Again, it's nonsense to read anything gendered into it; it's simply the current slice of an evolving continuity.

Also, you're forgetting one female captain, Ro Laren, who's still in a leadership position in the DS9 novels. Not to mention Captain Sonya Gomez of the da Vinci, Captain Afsarah Eden in command of the Delta Quadrant fleet, Captain Regina Farkas of the Quirinal, Captain Clarissa Glenn (commander by rank but captain by title) of the Galen, Captain Claudia Alisov of the Everett, admirals such as Nechayev, and numerous civilian authority figures like Nan Bacco and Gell Kamemor. And captains from earlier eras like Erika Hernandez, Hallie Gannon, Atish Khatami, Saavik, Demora Sulu, etc.

On the male side, it's incorrect to say that Archer is "still" a captain. As of the most current time we've seen Archer, the founding ceremony of the Federation in August 2161, Enterprise has been decommissioned for more than a year -- and if you look carefully, you'll see that Archer is never referred to as "Captain Archer" in that chapter. Onscreen bio information from "In a Mirror, Darkly" suggests that Archer went on to become an admiral and the Starfleet Chief of Staff; it's quite possible he's already an admiral by that final scene in To Brave the Storm. But whatever his rank, he's not still in command of a starship as far as we know.

So you're interpreting the data very selectively in order to support an entirely illegitimate claim that male and female characters are being treated differently. It just isn't so.

__________________Christopher L. Bennett Homepage -- Site update 11/16/14 including annotations for "The Caress of a Butterfly's Wing" and overview for DTI: The Collectors